In a nematic gel we observe a low-energy buckling deformation arising from soft and semisoft elastic modes. We prepare the self-assembled gel by dissolving a coil-side-group liquid-crystalline polymer-coil copolymer in a nematic liquid crystal. The gel has long network strands and a precisely tailored structure, making it ideal for studying nematic rubber elasticity. Under polarized optical mic...

Hydrogels are widely studied for chemical sensors. However, they are known to adsorb organic compound and metal ions. The adsorption abilities of hydrogels against organic compounds and metal ions will negatively affect the performance of a hydrogel based chemical sensor. To clarify the effect of hydrophobic pollution on swelling behavior of temperature-sensitive gel, the temperature-responses ...

Novel polymer gel electrolytes have been prepared by incorporating LiI-I(2) solutions into a polyethylene oxide matrix supported by a TiO(2) filler. The gel electrolytes, based on either acetonitrile or propylene carbonate solvents are compared with liquid standard ones and are examined by (7)Li solid state nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry and diffusion measurements. In parallel, the trii...

The osmotic and scattering properties of hyaluronan-based composite hydrogels composed of stiff biopolymer chains (carboxymethylated thiolated hyaluronan (CMHA-S)) crosslinked by a flexible polymer (polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA)) are investigated and analyzed in terms of the scaling theory. The total pre-gel polymer weight concentration is varied between 0.5 wt.% and 3.2 wt.%, while th...

crosslinked poly(acrylic acid)s were prepared using two types of crosslinker by precipitation polymerization method in a binary organic solvent. n,n’-methylenebisacrylamide (mba) and polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate (pegdma-330) were used as low-molecular weight and long-chain crosslinkers, respectively. the effect of various types of crosslinkers on polymer characteristics (i.e., gel content...

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the percentage depth dose (PDD) of PAGAT normoxic polymer gel dosimeter by electron beams using MRI technique for a standard clinically used Co-60 therapy unit and an electa linear accelerator. Materials and Methods: Using MRI, the formulation to give the maximum change in the transverse relaxation rate R2(1/T2) was determined to be 4.5% N,...

Radiation sensitive polymer gels are among the most promising three-dimensional dose verification tools developed to date. Polymer gel dosimeter known by the acronym MAGIC has been tested for evaluation of its use in boron neutron capture (BNCT) dosimetry. We irradiated a large (diameter 10 cm, length 20 cm) cylindrical gel phantom in the epithermal neutron beam of the Finnish BNCT facility at ...

Viscoelastic phase separation is characterized by the formation of a transient gel upon phase separation. A transient gel state is widely observed in complex fluids including polymer solutions, colloidal suspensions, and protein solutions, but its physical description is quite difficult due to its intrinsically nonequilibrium nature. We have modeled this transient gel state using a type of Brow...

A bucky gel actuator is a novel electro-active polymer (EAP), which is a low-voltage-driven dry soft actuator. In addition, the bucky gel device generates electromotive force when bending and then it can also be used as a sensor. Its device has a bimorph structure with polymer-supported bucky gel electrodes and a polymersupported ionic gel electrolyte. It can be fabricated by layer-by-layer cas...